Richard Bard is a turnaround artist, philanthropist and the benefactor of the Richard H. and Pamela S. Bard Center for Entrepreneurship Development at the University of Colorado at Denver (UCD). But what he really wants to talk about is golf. One of Bard’s companies, Bard Capital Partners LLC, is one of the sponsors of the Duff Challenge, a series of regional events in which the amateur winners will eventually get to play against professional players John Daly and Scott Hoch.

“It’s fun,” Bard says of the series. “It’s an American dream kind of opportunity.” The tournament consists of 76 regional events that begin in June and culminate with a televised final in December.

Not that Bard has much time for golf. Bard specializes in buying companies, revamping them and selling them. But he’s no Chainsaw Al (Al Dunlop, who turned around companies by laying off thousands of workers). “It’s all about growing businesses,” Bard says.“All businesses have one great thing in common, and that’s customers.We figure out what the customer wants, and how the company can move up the supply chain and become a primary supplier.”

He says he turns around companies by bringing in people, usually talented managers who have helped him turn around previous companies.The investorled companies he’s brought to “successful conclusions” include FoxMeyer Corp., Coast-to-Coast Hardware (CoastAmerica Corp.), ComputerLand Corporation, Main Street Gaming (which became Fitzgerald’s in Black Hawk) and Optical Security Group, Inc. He moves the companies to Colorado after he buys them, and estimates that the moves have brought about 2,000 jobs to the state, including 300 executive positions.

Bard didn’t start out as a turnaround artist. He earned a civil engineering degree from Pennsylvania State University. After graduation, he worked on the waterways in Venice, Calif., the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) district in San Francisco, and even condemned a bridge in Boston. But he never wanted to be an engineer. His minor was in computer science, so he moved to New York City and took a job at Citicorp (now Citigroup).“We were buying banks,” he says. “I assisted on a couple.”

He earned his master’s degree in business administration from Baruch College of the City University of New York. He soon decided his niche would be buying and selling companies, and started his own business. His first deal: a drug wholesaler, whom he describes the way he describes all the companies he buys. “They were in trouble,” he says.

He says that in 1978, FoxMeyer, then a family-owned business, asked him for help. So he bought the pharmaceutical company, made 16 acquisitions over the next eight years, took the company public and sold it in 1986 when it had $2 billion in revenues. “Then I bought Coast-to-Coast Hardware, then ComputerLand,” he says.

He admits he has a short attention span. “Once a company doesn’t need me any more I get bored,” he says.“The fun is building a business, getting involved.As soon as it becomes a stable business, I tend to lose interest.” Golden-based Bard Capital Partners (BCP) is his umbrella company that buys the struggling companies. BCP’s most recent acquisition is International Surface Preparation Corp. (ISPC), which makes finishing equipment for manufacturers in the aerospace and automotive industries. ISPC is actually two companies: Wheelabrator Group and Blastrac.Although Bard is reportedly looking at buying more companies, he says he has no plans for now except to help these two companies succeed. BCP is the largest shareholder in each entity.

SMALL BUSINESS
Bard says he spends most of his time with ISPC, but he does work on other projects. BCP owns the historic Masonic Building in downtown Denver, and the building houses his movie company, Ninth Floor Media. The company has produced three movies so far. “It’s a great, fun diversion,” he says. “I hope we make money some day.”

His interest is not limited to large companies. In 1996, Bard and his wife, Pamela, made a $1.4 million endowment to create the Bard Center for Entrepreneurship at the Business School at UCD. “Students just love it,” Bard says. “I teach a beginning entrepreneurship class.They want to understand how to incorporate entrepreneurship in their lives.”

The participants are students in the MBA, engineering or other graduate programs. Many are in their 30s, and some work full-time jobs during the day. Some are former corporate staffers who want to start their own businesses, while others want to know about corporate “intrepreneurship,” or applying the entrepreneurial thought process to their jobs in large companies. The concept could also benefit government employees. “Imagine the government having people who have entrepreneurial thought processes,” Bard says.

The center, which is housed in the Masonic Building, includes a business incubator, made up of six companies ranging from technology to services. An advisory board consists of high profile working entrepreneurs and those involved in Colorado’s entrepreneurial focus, including venture capitalists, financial institutions, real estate firms and others in the business community. The key, according to Dr. Alexander Bracken, The Bard Center’s executive director, is the advisors’ involvement.“The Bard Center’s advisors get involved in the program by mentoring, counseling incubator companies and participating in a valuable way,” states Dr. Bracken.“The ultimate mission of the Bard Center is to help new ventures achieve success through corporate involvement and active participation allowing many young companies succeed.”A concept that Richard Bard initiated and The Bard Center is effectively implementing.

Some small businesses can even get start-up capital from the center’s venture fund, up to $50,000 in seed money.The money, available only to students at the center, is structured as equity, a loan, or convertible debt. Applicants have to go through the usual business plan, presentation, and other capital-finding processes. “There has been significant enrollment growth (roughly 35 percent) in students taking entrepreneurship courses in the last academic year,” states Dr. Bracken. “We are seeing increased interest in companies eligible for the incubator space and the Bard Center’s resources.”

Very characteristic to Bard’s business methodology,The Bard Center is also committed to working with individual companies during and after they exit the program further ensuring long-term success. Access to additional capital, funding opportunities and other professional services are part of the process.

Bard’s commitment to the center is commendable. His devotion to the success of the Bard Center and its mission is evident by his active participation and dedication. The ongoing growth is attributed to a vision that accounts for the changing needs of entrepreneurs and the programs offered.

THE BOARDS
In 2001, Bard was elected to the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He’s not the only Denver business person on the board: Lu Cordova, president of the angel investor CTEK, is also on the board. “It’s the only government agency that really has an outside board of directors,” Bard says. “That keeps it away from being too political.”

The Federal Reserve Bank plays an important role in stability and liquidity. “The dollar doesn’t change value every day.When 9-11 happened you didn’t have to run to the bank and get your money,” says Bard, who in his last year as chairman.“The Federal Reserve has been a great learning experience, and quite an honor.”

He has served on non-profit boards such as National Jewish Hospital, Colorado Symphony and the Children’s Museum. In 1987, he established the Irene and Irving Bard (his parents) Professorship in Marketing at The Pennsylvania State University. He also contributes to arts in the Vail Valley. “We tend to support great institutions,” he says.

He hopes to do more charitable work. He says he’s working on donating some of the proceeds from the Bard Capital Challenge, his regional Duff Challenge, to the American Cancer Society. He hopes more business owners will get involved in philanthropic work. “There are so many new people to our business community who we don’t bring in, and there is no shortage of organizations and ideas and people trying hard.We have to organize that energy.”

Like his business turnaround work, the charitable work never ends. He has the philanthropist’s common lament: once he responds to invitations to dinners and other fundraising events, he is solicited by many charities. “It would be nice to do all those, but you just can’t,” he says. “We said, ‘Let’s stop doing this and take two or three things that are meaningful.’ That’s how we wound up forming the Bard Center, to do something that makes a difference.”